


i sleep safe and sound in my cardboard walls

by procellous



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Cunnilingus, Dirty Talk, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Identity Porn, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Porn with Feelings, Vaginal Sex, a dash of pregnancy kink, implied past sexual abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-12
Updated: 2019-09-12
Packaged: 2020-10-17 03:54:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20614535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/procellous/pseuds/procellous
Summary: They would only have one night together before the attack started, before the city fell to her brother and his armies, and fate would tear them apart again. They would only have one chance to make it count.





	i sleep safe and sound in my cardboard walls

**Author's Note:**

> So this is porn. 
> 
> Please enjoy the sex.

“I’ll ask you one last time,” the king growled, sword-point resting on the prisoner’s throat. “Where is my sister?”

The prisoner laughed nervously. “Your Grace, I assure you, I have been keeping her safe for your, ah, arrival.” A drop of blood welled up and ran along the fuller as the king pressed just a little harder, and the prisoner’s eyes flickered with fear. “She’s quite safe indeed, I assure you.”

“You look like a man who values his head. If she were anything less than completely safe—well.” The king smiled. It showed all of his teeth. The prisoner shivered a little.

“I’d be happy to guide you to her.”

The king leaned in close to his prisoner’s narrow face. “Do you think I have won against men with thrice my years and thrice my men and thrice my gold by being stupid?”

“Of course not, my king.”

“Of course not,” the king echoed. “I am not so fool as to let an opportunistic turncloak lead me into my enemies’ city. You will tell me where you have hidden my sister, and you will tell me _now_.” The sword-point dug in a little harder into the soft, unguarded flesh of the prisoner’s neck.

“She’s—she’s in a brothel,” the prisoner gasped. “I hid her in one of my brothels.”

“Which one.” The wolf padded up on silent feet beside the king, teeth bared. They were the mirror of each other, king and wolf.

“The Golden Hind! She’s in the Golden Hind!”

“There now,” the king said, sheathing his sword, “was that so hard? Chain him,” the king ordered with a gesture to the guards flanking the prisoner, and turned to his friend. “Find her; if he’s lying, or you’re not back by…oh, let’s say sun-down tomorrow, when I sound the attack—I’ll take his head.”

“If I’m lying, you’ll never find her if you take my head,” the prisoner said.

“Then it’s a good thing you aren’t lying to me, isn’t it?”

“Even if she’s not there, I’ll find her,” his friend said.

The king clasped his hand with a smile, rested their foreheads together. “I know you will."

His boots thumped loudly as he strode across the shining tiles. He wore no signs nor sigils, only plain leathers; the better to avoid notice as he moved through the city.

The brothel was off-puttingly _clean_. The floors were polished; a fountain gurgled in the center of the courtyard; a harpist sat in a shadowed corner and plucked at her instrument. It might have been a wealthy family’s home, if not for the naked or nearly-naked women milling about, and the men pulling them in to straddle their laps.

He could only see one woman in their number. The king had sent the right man for this; her hair was dyed a plain black, her face half-hidden with a thin white veil, her eyes darkened with kohl, but he knew the woman playing the harp in a shadowed corner, singing softly as she stroked the strings. He had loved her, once.

He stood still in the shadows of a pillar, watching her fingers work the strings and listening to her sing. It was a lament, one of the old songs of the North.

_The wind blows around standing walls,_  
_Frost covers the houses, and then storms._  
_The halls weaken, their lords lie cheated of joy._  
_All the heroes have fallen,_  
_In their pride, against the wall._  
_One the war took away, carried off in his journey._  
_One the bird bore away over the deep sea._  
_One the grey wolf shared with death._  
_One the sad-faced lord covered in a grave._

A man emerged from a side door, a weaselly-looking man with an anxious air to him, and skittered across the floor. _Don’t strike him,_ he told himself, although that was his first instinct as the man eased in far too close to him.

“Does any girl in particular catch my lord’s eye?”

“What’s her name?” He gestured to the woman playing the harp.

“Ah, my lord has good taste, but I am afraid that she is not available.”

“I asked for her name, not her price,” he snapped.

“Ye-es,” the man said, “but neither is available. She is being held for the king. For, ah, safekeeping, I am told.” He gave a nervous titter, his fingers twisting together.

“Lots of those around, lately.”

“Indeed, indeed, my lord is very right,” the man agreed. “Is there some other girl—”

“So I might ask,” he said, barely restraining the snarl, “which king she’s being held for.”

“T-the King in the N-north, my lord, who I am assured would have a w-wolf rip my throat out if any man lays a finger on her but him.” The man rubbed his neck, and gave another nervous titter. “My hands are tied.”

“Good answer,” he said, drawing out the silver wolf’s-head pin that the king had given him before he had left for Pyke, years ago, when it was all still a game. “The wolf is busy, but I can rip your throat out just as well.”

The man paled before bowing low. “I understand, Your Grace. Shall I have a room prepared for you, Your Grace?”

Someone didn’t mention to him that she’s the king’s sister. Still—he glanced at her, and she looked up from her harp to meet his gaze, recognition flashing in her pale eyes—

“Yes,” he said. “Do so.”

She padded into the room on soft, silent feet. Her pale blue dress seemed to be made of cobwebs and morning dew; it was thin and filmy as sea-foam, clinging to her body. It covered her from her neck to her toes, and concealed absolutely nothing.

She had grown tall in the long years apart; taller than him now by a fingersbreadth. His heart ached in his chest. Somehow, he had thought that once they found each other, they could go back to being children.

He brushed a stray strand of hair back behind one ear, his fingertips lingering on her cheek. Slowly, entranced, he slid his hand along her face to cup her cheek properly, his thumb resting against the corner of her mouth.

Her eyes fascinated him. They were always pale, but the dark kohl around them made them look almost colorless. Like ice, he thought. Like clear water turned to perfect ice; but ice couldn’t hold a storm in its depths, ice couldn’t make him ache with longing.

He guided their lips together, softly, gently; like the notes of her harp lingering, like a wind’s whisper in the air.

A small hitch of breath betrayed her disguise as they broke apart. Her eyes were half-closed, long dark lashes sweeping up to meet his gaze.

The sound of her name rested like a caress on his tongue, the first breath of it escaping as she pressed her finger against his lips and said, “I’ve whatever name my lord would like me to have.”

And he understood.

It had been a first-love, a true-love, but a child-love, playing at romances bigger than they were; only a paper shield and a wooden sword against steel and leather. The whims and wills of kings had separated them years ago, miles ago, and would like as not keep them apart. She would be wed to some lord whose favor her brother needed, and he would…

He would stand by his king’s side, and never speak of the ache in his heart; a familiar secret to keep, how his heart ached for a memory of love. It was the sort of thing she would have sighed over, once, the tragic lovers with only one night together.

Here was their one night, the calm before the storm. For now, at least, for only this moment, for only this night, there was nothing between them; no distance, no armies, no crowns. Only their masks, thin and flimsy as the dress she wore, only the pretense that they were strangers, nameless in the walls of the brothel. Players with their parts: that this was lust, and nothing more; that he was a man come to possess her; that she was a woman come to be possessed.

That such a thing was possible.

The brothel-master had refused to say her price, and for good reason: the price of this night was almost too dear. The wrath of her brother, his king and friend, should he find out about this; the ache of his heart, as he would have to watch her marry another man; the cold bed with only the memory of her warmth.

Almost too dear, but not quite. He could not regret the price for this yet.

He kissed her again, her lips soft on his, gentle at first and almost hesitant, but growing bolder as she opened to him. She still tasted like lemons and lavender, and he pushed down the memory threatening to rise: the shadows of leaves patterning the bare skin of her shoulder, the sunlight in her hair making her glow. That was another time, another life. A might-have-been, a could-have-been, a should-have-been, perhaps; but she always deserved better than him, deserved to be queen, and it was a child’s fancy that anyone would have allowed them to be wed.

She moaned into his kiss, her hand creeping up under his doublet and tunic. He peeled her thin dress off her shoulders, kissing his way down her skin: from the long, pale column of her neck to her breastbone, where he could feel her heartbeat against his cheek, fluttering like a bird trying to escape the cage of her ribs. He nipped at one perfect breast, soothing the spot with his lips after as she gasped above him.

(There were scars along her back; he could feel their roughness against his palms as he slid them down her spine. But that was a conversation for the morrow, when they wore their faces again.)

She drew away for a moment, long enough only to untie his doublet and tug it off. The leather fell to the floor, and his tunic followed it down. Her hand ran along his shoulder, followed the curve of it as it swept up into his neck, and toyed with the curls at his nape. Her dress puddled around her hips, her bare skin gleaming in the pale moonlight.

He guided her to the bed and laid her down amid the soft sheets and pillows. His hand trembled lightly against her skin, suddenly nervous despite himself.

He lowered his mouth to her breasts, feeling like he was in a dream. They were perfect handfuls, just spilling out of his fingers, and she gasped and moaned as he nipped and sucked at them, soothing his teeth-marks with lips and tongue, leaving mottled red blooms across them.

“Beautiful,” he murmured against her chest, “so beautiful.”

He kissed a line down her stomach, to the dip of her navel, and hesitated. The thin silk of her dress clung to her skin, dipping down between her thighs. He could smell her arousal, heady and strong like mulled wine in winter, could see the way she squirmed and rubbed her thighs together in search of friction.

“Please,” she whispered, her voice gone breathy with want. “Please, I need more.”

He pulled the dress off entirely, revealing her long, graceful legs. Her eyes were dark with lust as she looked down her body at him. Her breasts heaved with every breath she took.

His hands glided down the soft, delicate skin of her thighs, drawing them apart. One leg draped over his shoulder, pinning him in place as he bowed his head and kissed her. Far above him, her breath hitched in a half-gasp. The leg around his shoulders tightened its grip, drawing him further in. He huffed a laugh against her, the puff of air making her squirm.

She tasted so sweet; sweet and salty as the sea. He pressed his tongue against her, drinking her in desperately; flicked his tongue in sharp little motions and stroked long, sinuous curves. Her hands tangled in his hair, tugging him further up and into her. His lips formed the shape of her name, a silent prayer.

He moaned into the delta of her thighs, and she echoed the sound.

He might have spent hours like that, his face between her legs and her hands in his hair, learning every noise she made and every sensitive spot that made her buck up into him, working her to peak again and again until he drowned in her.

“Please—please,” she said, pulling his face away. “I want to feel you, I want you in me.” Her hands skimmed down his chest to his breeches, pulling away his belt and dropping it carelessly beside his doublet and tunic. Her long-fingered hand wrapped around his neglected cock, tugging it once, twice. He bucked into her grip helplessly.

“Careful with that, if you want me in you,” he murmured, kissing her neck and worrying a small mark up to bloom against her skin. One hand danced between her thighs, slipping up into her tight, wet heat. “Been a while since I’ve had a girl pretty as you in my bed.”

“If I’m so pretty,” she said, writhing up against him, “why are you taking so long to get in me?”

He couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled out of him. He would never have guessed that she could act like this, the proper little lady that she was. “Maybe I want to savor this.”

“Oh, but my lord,” she purred, “we have all night.”

All night and not a minute more; the dawn would melt their masks like dew. In the darkness, with scarce enough moonlight to fill the room, they could be anyone.

“Aye,” he said, kissing her long and slow. “We have all night.”

He slid inside her. She was perfect around him, warm and welcoming. Her mouth was open in a perfect circle, red as blood in the night, her breaths coming hitched with every one of his shallow thrusts.

Her nails dug into the flesh of his shoulder, and he laughed. “Enjoying yourself?”

She moaned, low in her throat, rocking her hips against him. “More, faster, _please_—”

“Greedy girl,” he said, nipping at her lips and moving faster.

Some small, quiet part of his mind told him that he should worry about getting a bastard on her, about her maidenhead, but it was easily silenced when he thrust in deeply and she screamed, her head thrown back and her nails digging in to his shoulder so hard that they broke skin. It was frantic and rough, half-wild with their burning need, and it didn’t take long for him to finish, sinking his teeth into her neck as he came.

She hummed as he slid out of her, sated for now, and watched him from half-hooded eyes. He rolled off her, but he didn’t—couldn’t—go far; the absence of her touch was colder than a sword’s edge.

“When you’re ready to go again,” she said, trailing her fingers over his bare chest, “I want to switch places.”

“Gonna ride me like one of your horses, princess?”

“Aye,” she said, with a sharp, sly grin. Her hand splayed possessively over his chest, over his heart. “Like a prize stallion.”

She nuzzled into his neck, biting at the pulse point, nipping and sucking to raise a large bruise there. He could feel her smile against his skin, the blunt edges of her teeth tracing his skin, her soft lips mapping out the shape of his throat. His fingers ran through her hair, smoothing it out into familiar curls.

They didn’t sleep; only rested a moment, trading lazy kisses until he felt his cock beginning to stir again at the feel of her against him.

Her grin was wicked as she ran a finger along the shaft, a gentle tease. “Hello, there,” she cooed, tapping the head of his cock. “Didn’t really get a chance to admire this earlier, but you _are_ a handsome one.” She wrapped her lips around the head, sucking delicately.

“Fuck,” he groaned, bucking helplessly into her mouth. “Thought you were going to ride me?”

She hummed around him, coaxing another low moan out of him, and slid off only to place her palms on his chest and lift herself up, holding herself above him. Aside from her hands and the brush of her thighs on his sides, she wasn’t touching him, and his skin felt too-cold without her.

“Was I, my lord?” Her eyes were wide with mock-innocence, a parody of the girl she had been. A chill ran down his spine. He had been deliberately not thinking about it, because it was too close to the truth, but—

She wasn’t acting like herself at all, was she?

With a smooth, almost torturously slow motion, she sank down on him. The false innocence was gone, left with something too-real and desperate, almost bleak. In the moonlight she was bleached of all color, bone and ink.

“S—” The name was cut off by her kiss.

“Give me this night,” she murmured. “Let me have one night without shame. Let me be any other girl. Until I can’t feel their hands, _please_—”

He kissed her, his hands moving in long strokes along her spine. If he could press her scars into her skin again, he would, and leave her unmarked by any hands other than his. She shuddered at his touch, arching up into it.

“Beautiful,” he said, only half-aware of the words as they passed his lips, “beautiful, so beautiful. My perfect girl.”

His hands spanned her ribcage, her heart fluttering against his palm. Her thighs trembled around his hips as she rode him, her breasts bouncing with every thrust.

“I’ve got you, love. You can let go.”

With a soft cry, she came, tight and pulsing around him. Her arms buckled as she rode him through her peak and his, finally sagging into his embrace as she slumped down, exhausted.

A thousand words crowded his tongue, but he swallowed them down. They would keep until the morning.

Her fingers traced nonsense patterns on his skin. “Do you think you can go again tonight?”

“Greedy girl,” he said, laughing. “For you, princess, I can.”

“Want you to take me from behind.” She buried her head in the crook of his neck. “Want you to take me every way.”

“Fuck,” he muttered, soft but sincere. “You’ll be the death of me.”

“You love me.”

It was too close to the truth, dancing along the sword’s edge, but— “Always.”

“You feel so good,” he said as he slid inside her. “Like you were made just for this, just for me to love you.” She was flushed in the moonlight, giving him soft moans with every thrust. “Gods, if I could, I’d take you every night, fill you up, give you strong sons and clever daughters. No other man would touch you then, they’d know you were mine, they’d know they couldn’t compare.”

She’d be gorgeous, full and round as a full moon and twice as brilliant; the stars would hide their faces in shame at her glow.

“Yes,” she gasped, “yes, please—”

He brushed her hair back from her neck, kissing the exposed nape. “Oh, you’ve no idea what I’d do with you, if I could.”

“Then tell me,” she said, tossing her head like a haughty lady, like the lady she had been, long ago. The image was a little ruined by the way she arched her back to meet his every thrust and stroke. “Or fuck me like you mean it.”

He thrust in, hard and fast, and earned a faint gasp. “Like this, you mean?” he said, voice low and intent in her ear.

“Something like.” She sounded very smug, like a cat that had taught a mouse to come into her claws, but breathless. He didn’t bother hiding his smirk. “What was it you were—_ah!_—saying?”

“I’d take you every night until I filled your belly with seed, until everyone could see that you were _mine_.” He thrust in, deep, savoring the noise she made at the word. “I’d lay you down on furs before I fire and I’d kiss every inch of you, leave you loose and pliant, and then I’d put my head between your legs and I’d make you peak again and again on my tongue.”

“And then? How would you take your pleasure?”

Just the fantasy was enough to make him throb, especially now that he knew some of the sounds she could make when his tongue was inside her—but afterwards, when she was relaxed and sated…

“I’d have options then, wouldn’t I? I could just shove my cock into your cunt,” he punctuated the word with a sharper thrust, “but you’d be so sensitive after you’d peaked so much, and I wouldn’t want to hurt you. Might take your mouth, have you return the favor, but I think I would just take myself in hand and spill across your stomach.” His hand tangled in her hair, drawing her head back to give him access to her neck. He bit another dark bruise, worried it into a bloom of color against her bone-white skin.

He would regret it, but not yet.

“If I could, I’d take you on everything I could. In your bed, on a table, a desk; I’d shove you up against a wall, hike your legs up around my waist. I’d take you in the hot springs, too, with the steam around us. I’d take you out in a boat, let the waves rock us together, and you could scream just as long and loud as you’d like, out in the open ocean where there was nobody but us for miles. I’d—fuck, I’d take you with all the gods you can name as witness. Let them see us together, let them just try to tear us apart.”

The world outside was still dark, but the sky above was turning to a deep blue, edged with purple in the east.

Sansa lay in his arms, her dark hair mussed and tangled. Her bare skin was marked with bruises shaped like his mouth, his hands. The kohl around her eyes was smudged, making her look like she hadn’t slept in months, but her eyes were as silver and as shining as the sheen of sunlight on the sea.

He brushed a stray lock back from her face, tucking it behind her ear. His back stung from the long scratches she had carved into it.

“Theon,” she whispered. “Theon, let’s run. We can go to—to Essos, to anywhere, we can say we’re married, we can—we can be other people. Let’s leave all this behind, leave the war and the kings and our names.”

“Would you truly be happy like that?”

“Does it matter?” Her voice was so small, so bleak. “I haven’t been happy since we left Winterfell. I think I’ve forgotten what it felt like.” She sighed. “I’m not the same girl you knew, Theon.”

“I’m not the same boy, either. We’ll be alright, Sansa.” He kissed her, soft and almost chaste. “Everything will be alright. You’ll make a good marriage, find a lord that makes you happy…”

“A good marriage,” she echoed. “I don’t want—I don’t want to marry a stranger. I won’t. It has to be someone I can trust.”

“Those scars on your back,” he said, softly. “They came from Joffery, didn’t they?” He might not have needed to ask; the rising storm within him held nothing but anger and worry and sick dread for her inevitable answer. He knew it almost before she spoke the words. 

“His Kingsguard, but on his orders.” Her eyes were fixed on a distant point, looking through Theon to something only she could see. So quietly he might have mistook her voice for a breath, she said: “Every time Robb won a victory.”

“And this one?” He traced a finger along the thin, small line where her chin met her neck.

“The Hound held a knife to my throat and made me sing for him. He called me _little bird_.” She spat the words like a curse.

“He was a fool, then, to mistake a wolf’s howl for birdsong.” Theon’s arms tightened around her. “Nobody will hurt you again, I swear it. Not so long as I’m breathing.”

“You can’t promise that.” Her voice was soft and sad.

“But I _am_ promising that. Oh, Sansa, I’d marry you, if you’ll have me.” The words felt like a confession. “You’d wear a dress of white furs, and Robb would walk with you to the heart tree. I’d wrap my cloak around you, and marry you there, for all the world to know that I’m yours.” He could almost see her there, dazzling in the torchlight, like a bride made of snow.

She smiled, faint and fond.

“Why did you come here, Theon?”

“Robb is outside the gates with his armies. Littlefinger told him where he had hidden you, and I went to find you before they sound the attack.”

“Robb is here…” There was a hope in her eyes. He didn’t know it had been missing until it returned, but he never wanted it to leave.

“Aye, with the armies of the North and the Riverlands backing him. It’s almost over.”

“Take me to him,” she ordered. There was light in her eyes, a flame rekindled from ashes. “Please, Theon, take me to him.”

Sansa had dug out a dress that was at least slightly more modest than the thin silk she had worn the day before from a small chest he hadn’t noticed earlier. The dress was a plain grey with no real embellishment; with her dark hair, she might still have been anyone. 

She was limping slightly, bruises showing starkly against her skin, which Theon felt a little guilty for—if only because explaining to Robb why his precious little sister looked incredibly well-fucked in any way that didn’t involve Robb contemplating his murder was going to be…difficult.

Worth it, though. He didn't regret the price of the night, not yet.

“Ready?” he asked, holding out his hand.

She nodded once, sharply.

And hand in hand, they walked into the morning light.

**Author's Note:**

> Robb, when Sansa and Theon get back: Congrats on the sex.  
Theon: Wh-what sex? We didn't have sex? What are you talking about?  
Robb: I'm not an idiot, you know. Why did you think I sent you? Yeah, yeah, best friend and most trusted advisor, sure, but also you've been stupid over Sansa since we were kids. You weren't exactly subtle when you were sneaking off together.  
Sansa: You knew about that?  
Robb, burying his head in his hands: Oh gods you're both so fucking stupid.


End file.
